4 ms·
How long before SV reinvents the paid magazine subscription? Advertising seems to have an adverse effect on content quality, mostly because it puts focus on the
by dexwiz 10y ago
How long before SV reinvents the paid magazine subscription? Advertising seems to have an adverse effect on content quality, mostly because it puts focus on the wrong metrics. An alternative is needed.
Medium is in a perfect position to introduce a subscription service. They have a community of both publisher and consumers, a leading platform, and the backing of VC. Turn Medium into a Patreon for writers. This does not mean a paywall. This means things like locking comments to subscribers only, direct tips to authors, chat sessions with authors.
Twitch managed to take a primarily ad based platform and layer subscriptions and donations over the top of it. Their stroke of genius, is that any subscription locked content is left up the creator (streamer) such as emotes, sub-only chat, sub games, etc. It is possible. It also helped that Twitch Prime piggy backs on Amazon Prime, but Medium may be able to find another similar service to partner with.
Also all things are cyclic. We are seeing a low point for paid subscriptions (newspapers), but that doesn't mean it won't come back in another form. Enhancing the social experience, not the content, via subscriptions may be a viable path.
- komali2 10y agoLocking comments to subscribers only is an awesome idea. I always thought reddit gold was a pretty good idea as well. Reminds me of Something Awful - 5 bucks to register kept out the worst commenters. Mostly.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoPatreon is already the Patreon for Writers though and for Medium to chase that type of audience is counter-intuitive. As a conduit to larger audiences, I think Patreon is about as useful as selling photocopies on a street corner. Medium has a much larger footprint which, in my perspective, allows them to be more of a Curator / Publicist / Rights Management entity than a skim-off-the-top-pseudo-serfdom-model like Patreon.
- michaelchisari 10y agoHow long before SV reinvents the paid magazine subscription? I would love for the opportunity to subscribe for a nominal amount, if it meant supporting writers and journalists, while also eliminating ads and my data being sold. It's the principle of "Cheap is better than Free" that we're all relearning.